Our Lodge
The Mother Lodge of Royal Ark Mariners No. 1 is moored to St. Marks Lodge of Mark Master Masons No. 1, and like every Royal Ark Mariner lodge it carries the number of its Mark lodge.
It was consecrated on 29 January 1872. St. Marks had worked the Ark degree for many years before then: in 1870 The Freemason described “those ancient Mark lodges, the Kent and St. Mark’s, No. 1, which have always given the Ark”. Grand Mark Lodge had just taken the Royal Ark Mariner degree under its protection and formed the Grand Master’s Royal Ark Council to regulate it, and the first working of the degree under the new constitution took place in the Mother Lodge.
The Lodge’s Victorian members were closely involved in the life of St. Marks. In 1887 The Freemason reported members of “the mother lodge of Royal Ark Mariners, No. 1, attached to St. Mark’s Lodge, No. 1” visiting the Old Kent Lodge to see the degree worked. They included Bro. George Powell, then Worshipful Commander, Bro. P. L. Simmonds, Past Commander, and Bro. George Kenning. The Illustrated History of St. Mark’s Lodge (1895) has a chapter on the Royal Ark Mariner degree and reproduces the Lodge’s “Ark Mariners’ Warrant of 1872”.
See the Lodge History of St. Marks for more.
[TODO: add later notable events and members of the Mother Lodge.]
Meetings
The Lodge meets at Mark Masons’ Hall, 86 St James’s Street, London SW1A 1PL.
The Lodge meets twice a year:
- 3rd Monday in June (installation meeting)
- 3rd Tuesday in February, the same day as the installation meeting of St. Marks Lodge
In the Provincial Year Book the Lodge appears as “The Mother”, No. 1.
Joining
Any Mark Master Mason may be elevated into the Royal Ark Mariner degree. Members of St. Marks, and Mark Masons from other lodges, are very welcome. Please contact the Scribe.